Sometimes stupidity helps.
We went from a simple "drop paper ticket into box by driver" to a super-cyber electronic transit system.
It would save $3M/year on fare dodging and be outsourced to a private company, and only ended up costing $50M more to install than they claimed and about $20M/year more to operate.
It also required a GPS signal and data link when you tapped in or out at the start/end of the journey. - to work out the fare. Which in the underground bus station only took a minute or so - for each passenger on a 100seat bendy bus.
The solution was to make the entire system a single zone, priced at the old rate for the shortest journey. The rationale = the loss in revenue was less than the cost of operating the new system, - so a saving !
Biting the hand that feeds IT
